Hadrian (A.D. 117-138)

Herbert W. Benario

Emory University

Introduction and Sources

"During a happy period of more than fourscore years, the public administration
was conducted by the virtue and abilities of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and
the two Antonines. It is the design of this and of the two succeeding chapters
to describe the prosperous condition of their empire, and afterwards, from
the death of Marcus Antoninus, to deduce the most important circumstances
of its decline and fall, a revolution which will ever be remembered and
is still felt by the nations of the earth."

So Edward Gibbon concluded the first paragraph of his massive The
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, referring to a period which he
also styled the happiest of mankind's history. Hadrian was the central
figure of these "five good emperors," the one most responsible for changing
the character and nature of the empire. He was also one of the most remarkable
and talented individuals Rome ever produced.

The sources for a study of Hadrian are varied. There is no major historian
for his reign, such as Tacitus or Livy. The chief literary sources are
the biography in the Historia Augusta, the first surviving life
in a series intended to continue Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars.[[1]]
Debate about this collection of imperial biographies has been heated and
contentious for more than a century. The most convincing view is that which
sees the whole as the work of a single author writing in the last years
of the fourth century. The information offered ranges from the precisely
accurate to the most wildly imaginative.[[2]]

Cassius Dio, who wrote in the decade of the 230s, produced a long history
of the empire which has survived, for the Hadrianic period, only in an
abbreviated version.[[3]] Fourth century historians,
such as Aurelius Victor and Eutropius, occasionally furnish bits of information.
Contemporaries or near-contemporaries of Hadrian, such as Arrian, Fronto,
Pausanias, and Plutarch, are also useful. Papyri, inscriptions, coins,
and legal writings are extremely important. Archaeology in all its aspects
contributes mightily to any attempt to probe the character of a man and
emperor whose personality and thoughts defy close analysis and understanding.

Early Life and Career

Hadrian was born on January 24, 76. Where he saw the light of day was,
even in antiquity, matter for debate. Italica, in Hispania Baetica, was
the birthplace of Trajan and was also considered
that of Hadrian. But the HA reports that he was born in Rome, and
that seems the more likely choice, since it is the more unexpected. The
actual place of one's birth was, however, unimportant, since it was one's
patria
which was crucial. Hadrian's ancestors had come to Spain generations before,
from the town of Hadria in Picenum, at the end of the Second Punic War.
Italica's tribus, to which Hadrian belonged, was the Sergia.
His father, P. Aelius Afer, had reached the praetorship by the time of
his death in 85/86, his mother, Domitia Paulina, came from a distinguished
family of Gades, one of the wealthiest cities in the empire. His sister
Paulina married Servianus, who played a significant role in Hadrian's career.
Trajan
was the father's cousin; when Afer died, Trajan
and P. Acilius Attianus, likewise of Italica, became Hadrian's guardians.[[4]]

At the age of about ten, Hadrian went to Italica for the first time
(or returned, if he had been there earlier in his childhood), where he
remained for only a brief time. He then returned to the capital and soon
began a rapid rise through the cursus honorum; he was a military
tribune of three different legions in consecutive years, a series of appointments
which clearly marked him for a military career, and reached the consulate
as a suffect at the age of 32, the earliest possible under the principate.
At Trajan's death, he was legate of the
province of Syria, with responsibility for the security of the east in
the aftermath of Trajan's Parthian War.

(Some of these dates are less than secure; important for much of this
information is the Athens inscription [Smallwood 109]).

Relationship to Trajan, Marriage, and Adoption

Hadrian's only male relative after the death of his father was M.
Ulpius Traianus, his father's cousin, hence his own first cousin
once removed. Trajan and his wife, Pompeia
Plotina, had no children, and were surrogate parents to the child Hadrian.
Trajan's influence in government was steadily increasing, both through
his own merits and because of his father's great services to Vespasian
in the civil wars and afterwards.[[5]] When
Trajan
was adopted by Nerva and designated successor
in late 97, Hadrian carried the congratulations of the Moesian legions
to him along the Rhine, and was kept there by Trajan
to serve in a German legion. In 100, largely at the instance of Plotina, Hadrian
married Trajan's grand-niece Vibia Sabina,
ten years his junior. This marriage was not a happy one, although it endured
until her death in 136 or 137. There were no children, and it was reported
that Sabina performed an abortion upon herself in order not to produce
another monster.[[6]] In spite of marital unhappiness,
the union was crucial for Hadrian, because it linked him even more closely
with the emperor's family. He got along very well with his mother-in-law
Matidia and with the empress, whose favor enhanced his career.

In mid-summer 117, when Trajan was returning
from his Parthian campaigns, he fell ill while at Selinus in Cilicia and
died on August 8. The following day his adoption of Hadrian was announced
by Plotina and Attianus, the praetorian prefect who had earlier been Hadrian's
guardian, with some question whether Trajan
had indeed performed the act or whether it was posthumous, thanks to his
widow. On August 11, which he considered his dies imperii, the army
of Syria hailed its legate, Hadrian, as emperor, which made the senate's
formal acceptance an almost meaningless event. This was an example of the
historian Tacitus' famous dictum that an emperor could be made elsewhere
than at Rome.[[7]]

Succession and the Affair of the Four Consulars

Hadrian chose as his official title Imperator Caesar Traianus Hadrianus
Augustus (for much of the decade of the 120s, he was simply known as
Hadrianus Augustus). He must then have proceeded to Selinus at once from
Antioch, to catch up with Attianus, Plotina, and Matidia. He then returned
to his province no later than September and stayed there at least into
the new year, consolidating his administration. He began the year as cos.
II; whether he had been so designated by Trajan
is unknown. On January 3, 118, the Arval Brethren met in Rome to offer
vows for the well-being of the emperor, which shows that he was not in
the capital. In June or July they sacrificed because of the arrival of
the emperor who is present at the ceremony. He therefore may have taken
as much as eleven months from his accession to return to Rome. He saw to
the deification of his predecessor and celebrated games in honor of the
consecration. Trajan's ashes were placed
in the base of his column, by special dispensation, since burials were
prohibited within the pomerium.

Anticipation of his arrival had been overshadowed by the execution of
four men of great importance, who had all held consulates and commands.
This action had been ordered by the senate, perhaps at the instigation
of the praetorian prefect Attianus. Hadrian always disclaimed responsibilty
but his relations with the senate were irrevocably damaged, never really
to improve until his death, when the senate hoped to have posthumous revenge.
The four men were Cornelius Palma (cos. II 109), who had been with
Trajan
in the east and had been governor of Syria, Avidius Nigrinus (cos.
110), governor of Dacia, Publilius Celsus (cos. II 113), and Lusius
Quietus, a Moorish chieftain (cos. 117), governor of Judaea and
one of Trajan's chief generals. Personal
enmity toward Hadrian certainly existed, perhaps because of Hadrian's move
away from Trajan's policy of expansion,
perhaps because of jealousy that Hadrian had been preferred for the succession.
Be that as it may, they were all Trajan's
men,
and their elimination certainly made Hadrian's course easier. But the odium
thereby raised caused him dismay until the end of his days.[[8]]
He was cos. III in 119, which proved to be the last consulship he
held. He thereby showed himself to be different from many of predecessors:
Augustus
held 13, Vespasian 9, Titus
8, Domitian 17, Trajan
6. He was similarly sparing in his acceptance of other titles; he became
pater
patriae only in 128.

Foreign policy, wars, and travel

In two important passages, Cassius Dio sets the tone for this section:

"Once, when a woman made a request of him as he passed by on a journey,
he at first said to her, 'I haven't time,' but afterwards, when she cried
out, 'Cease, then, being emperor,' he turned about and granted her a hearing."
(69.6.3)

"Hadrian travelled through one province after another, visiting the
various regions and cities and inspecting all the garrisons and forts.
Some of these he removed to more desirable places, some he abolished, and
he also established some new ones. He personally viewed and investigated
absolutely everything, not merely the usual appurtenances of camps, such
as weapons, engines, trenches, ramparts and palisades, but also the private
affairs of every one, both of the men serving in the ranks and of the officers
themselves, - their lives, their quarters and their habits, - and he reformed
and corrected in many cases practices and arrangements for living that
had become too luxurious. He drilled the men for every kind of battle,
honouring some and reproving others, and he taught them all what should
be done. And in order that they should be benefited by observing him, he
everywhere led a rigorous life and either walked or rode on horseback on
all occasions, never once at this period setting foot in either a chariot
or a four-wheeled vehicle. He covered his head neither in hot weather nor
in cold, but alike amid German snows and under scorching Egyptian suns
he went about with his head bare. In fine, both by his example and by his
precepts he so trained and disciplined the whole military force throughout
the entire empire that even to-day the methods then introduced by him are
the soldiers' law of campaigning." (69.9.1-4; both passages in the translation
of E. Cary in the Loeb edition)

These views of Hadrian stem from an historian who lived a century after
the emperor's reign. He appears as a conscientious administrator, an inveterate
traveler, and a general deeply concerned for the well-being of his armies,
and thus of the empire. There was generally peace throughout its lands,
although his principate was not entirely peaceful.

First of all, he had to quash the Jewish uprising which had begun under
Trajan
and spread throughout the diaspora. Then there were disturbances in Mauretania,
Dacia, and in northern Britain. Late in his reign, after deciding to resettle
the site of Jerusalem as the city of Aelia Capitolina and build a temple
to Jupiter on the site of the Jewish temple, another uprising occurred,
more bitter still than its recent predecessor.

Hadrian's goal as emperor was to establish natural or man-made boundaries
for the empire. He had realized that its extent had severely strained the
empire's capacity to maintain and protect it. Consolidation was his policy,
not expansion, and this brought him enmity in the early years, when Trajan's
eastern conquests were abandoned (a process already begun by Trajan)
and withdrawal from Dacia was contemplated.

Hadrian's own military experience was extensive. He had served in provinces
in the east, along the Danube, and along the Rhine. Soon after his arrival
in Rome, he began the lengthy journeys which took him to almost every province.
He was absent from Italy from 121 to 125, from 128 to 132, and from 134
to 136. He spent more than half his reign traveling; he displayed a Wanderlust
unlike that of any of his predecessors, and sharply contrasting with the
practice of his successor, who never left Italy.

Evidence for his precise routes and his goals is often entirely absent.
One must frequently infer from what is known, and most lists differ in
some details. The following is exemplary:

121 Gallia

Germania superior

Raetia

Noricum

Germania superior

122 Germania inferior

Britannia (where he began the construction of the

Wall which bears his name)

Gallia

Gallia Narbonensis (Nemausus)

Hispania (Tarraco)

123 Mauretania (?)

Africa (?)

Libya

Cyrene

Crete

Syria

The Euphrates (Melitene)

Pontus

Bithynia

Asia

124 Thrace

Moesia

Dacia

Pannonia

Achaia

Athens

125 Achaea

Sicily

Rome

128 Africa

Rome

Athens

129 Asia

Pamphylia

Phrygia

Pisidia

Cilicia

Syria

Commagene (Samosata)

Cappadocia

Pontus

Syria (Antioch)

130 Judaea

Arabia

Egypt (Nile trip; death of Antinous; Alexandria)

131 Libyan desert

Syria

Asia

Athens

132 Rome

134 Syria

Judaea

Egypt (?)

Syria (Antioch)

135 Syria

136 Rome

His stay in the East these last years was necessitated by the Jewish
War. His recurrent visits to Athens stemmed from his devotion to Greek
culture and the city itself, which had elected him archon while he was
still a private citizen (112). He much preferred the eastern provinces,
the Greek lands, to the western ones. After 128/9, he was hailed as Olympios,
after 132 as Panhellenios, and also as Panionios. Otherwise,
his travels were intended to gain intimate knowledge of people and provinces,
of the military in all its aspects, and to help produce a better and securer
life for almost all his subjects.

Domestic policy and legal activity

Hadrian was so little in Italy, compared with his time abroad, that
his governmental policies at home play a lesser role in consideration of
his entire principate. Yet they have significance, because they display
the same tendency toward order and consolidation as his external policies.
When he arrived in Rome in July 118 to a hostile reception on the part
of the senate, because of the death of the four consulars, he devoted attention
to matters of significance to the people. He pursued the honors due Trajan,
their favorite, examined the financial ledgers of the empire and discovered
that there was an enormous sum of uncollectable debts, some 900,000,000
sesterces. He determined to remove these from the accounts and begin his
reign with a clean slate. Consequently the records of these debts were
publicly burned, an event which, obviously, gained him public favor.[[9]]
It was represented in the relief of the plutei Traiani, presently
displayed in the Senate house in the Forum.[[10]]
He also continued and expanded the practice of the alimenta, whereby
state money was lent to individuals who paid interest to their local communities.
This money supported the local economy and helped maintain orphans.[[11]]
He also ensured that the grain supply upon which Rome depended became more
secure with his dramatic building program in Ostia.[[12]]

The most significant legal achievement was the codification of the praetorian
and aedilician edicts. This task was assigned to Salvius Julianus, who
produced one of the glories of Roman legal science.

Underscoring the importance of Hadrian's work, Kunkel in his magisterial
survey of Roman law indicates, "Edicts were magistral proclamations whose
content and scope might be very diverse. . . . At least from the late Republic
onwards litigants could, vis-à-vis a magistrate, rely on
the contents of the edicts as confidently as on a statute, for magistrates
were by lex Cornelia of 67 B.C. strictly bound by their edicts."[[13]]

These edicts, covering centuries, Julianus brought together into a straightforward
and modern document, which became the basis of subsequent praetorian and
aedilician activity in the field of law. The Edict has been lost, but many
excerpts made by commentators upon it have survived in Justinian's Code.[[14]]

Many letters and rescripts of Hadrian have survived, which, in their
variety, illustrate the almost infinite range of matters which were referred
to the emperor. Two important ones may be exemplary. In 121, at the request
of Plotina, who was deeply interested in the Epicurean School at Athens,
he permits the presidency of the school to be assumed by someone who is
not a Roman citizen, thereby increasing the pool of potential candidates
substantially.[[15]] Hadrian's rescript to
Minicius Fundanus is crucial for our understanding of the development of
Rome's relations with the Christians. He essentially reiterates Trajan's
response to Pliny (Ep. 10.97). Minicius was governor of Asia in
124/5. Hadrian's communication replied to a question put to him by Minicius'
predecessor, Serennius Granianus.[[16]]

Literary and artistic achievements

Hadrian was a man of extraordinary talents, certainly one of the most
gifted that Rome ever produced. He became a fine public speaker, he was
a student of philosophy and other subjects, who could hold his own with
the luminaries in their fields, he wrote both an autobiography and poetry,
and he was a superb architect. It was in this last area that he left his
greatest mark, with several of the empire's most extraordinary buildings
and complexes stemming from his fertile mind. The anonymous author of the
Historia
Augusta described Hadrian as Fuit enim poematum et litterarum nimium
studiosissimus. Arithmeticae, geometriae, picturae peritissimus.[[17]]

He rebuilt Agrippa's Pantheon into the remarkable building that survives
today, reconstructing the accustomed temple facade, with columns and pediment,
but attaching it to a drum which was surmounted by a coffered dome. The
latter was pierced by an oculus nine meters in diameter, which was
the main source of illumination. Height and diameter were identical, 43.3
meters. The dome remained the largest in the world until the twentieth
century. As was his custom, he replaced the original inscription of Agrippa
on the architrave; seldom did he put his own name on a monument.[[18]]

To complete Trajan's Forum, which had
been planned by Apollodorus on a tremendous scale, he added a large temple
dedicated to the deified Trajan and Plotina.
He thereby made this forum more similar to its four imperial predecessors,
each of which had a temple as its focus.[[19]]

On April 21, 121, the dies natalis of the city of Rome, Hadrian
began construction of a temple unique in design and larger than any other
ever built by the Romans. Its length of more than 100 meters made it the
only Roman addition to the short list of temples built by the Greeks which
were at least that long. Even more extraordinary was the interior, within
a fully peripteral colonnade. There were two cellae, back to back, with
an apse at the end in which were placed the statues of the goddesses Venus
and Roma, gigantic statues which, Apollodorus is said to have sneered,
would bang their heads if they got up.[[20]]
The temple dominated the east end of the Roman forum, built on the heights
of the Velia, overwhelming Titus' Arch and
facing the Amphitheatrum Flavium. He thereby linked his own achievements
as conqueror of the Jews and great builder with his Flavian predecessors.
Unlike Vespasian and Trajan,
who built new fora which bore their names, Hadrian was more interested
in individual monuments, the novelty and magnitude of which would keep
his name alive.[[21]] Late in life, he began
construction of a mausoleum, larger than that of Augustus, on the other
side of the Tiber and down river from it. It was approached by a new bridge
across the river, the Pons Aelius. The mausoleum had not been completed
at the time of his death.[[22]]His most imaginative,
nay stupendous, architectural achievement was his villa at Tibur, the modern
Tivoli, some 30 kilometers ENE of Rome, in the plain at the foot of the
Sabine Hills. It covered some 700 acres and contained about 100 buildings,
some of which were among the most daring ever attempted in antiquity. Here
Hadrian reconstructed, so to speak, many of the places which he had visited
in his travels, such as the Canopus of Alexandria and the vale of Tempe.[[23]]

He also left his mark on almost every city and province to which he
came. He paid particular attention to Athens, where he completed the great
temple of Olympian Zeus, some six centuries after construction had begun,
and made it the centerpiece of a new district of the city.

Hadrian's relationship with philosophers and other scholars was generally
fractious. He often scorned their achievements while showing his own superiority.
An anecdote about an argument which he had with the eminent philosopher
and sophist Favorinus revealed the inequity of such disagreement. Although
Favorinus was correct, he gave way to Hadrian, and when rebuked by friends,
replied, "You advise me badly, friends, since you do not permit me to believe
that he who commands thirty legions is the most learned of all."[[24]]

Hadrian's literary taste inclined toward the archaic and the odd. He
preferred Cato to Cicero, Ennius to Vergil, Coelius Antipater to Sallust,
and disapproved of Homer and Plato as well. Indeed, the epic writer Antimachus
of Colophon supplanted Homer in Hadrian's estimation.[[25]]
The biographer Suetonius held office under Hadrian but was discharged in
122 for disrespect to the empress.[[26]] The
historian Tacitus, who may have lived into Hadrian's reign, seems to have
found no favor with the emperor.

His best known literary work is the short poem which he is said to have
composed shortly before his death. These five lines have caused commentators
much interpretative woe.
animula vagula blandula
hospes comesque corporis
quae nunc abibis in loca
pallidula rigida nudula
nec ut soles dabis iocos! (25.9)

"Little soul, wandering and pale, guest and companion of my body, you
who will now go off to places pale, stiff, and barren, nor will you make
jokes as has been your wont."[[27]]

Another four lines of verse are preserved by the HA, part of
an exchange with the poet Florus. [[28]] Mention
is also made of his autobiography, which he had published under someone
else's name.[[29]]

Antinous

Probably the aspect of Hadrian's life which is most widely known is
his relationship with the handsome youth Antinous. He was a Bithynian,
born about 110, whom Hadrian met when the lad was in his mid-teens. He
joined Hadrian's entourage and was with him in Egypt in the fall of 130.
During the course of the emperor's Nile cruise, Antinous drowned. The reason
(or reasons) were not known. Conjecture of course abounded. The HA
suggests that Antinous offered himself to save Hadrian's life and that
there was a homosexual relationship between them. Tradition also reported
that Antinous committed suicide because an oracle had stated that, if he
did so, the remaining years of life that he could expect would be transferred
to the emperor. There is even the unsensational possibility that the childless
emperor, whose relationship with his wife was at best cool, looked upon
the attractive young man as the son whom he had never had. Whatever the
facts, Hadrian's grief was extravagant, and he caused the youth to be worshipped
as a god throughout the empire and cities in his honor were established
in many places. An Antinoopolis rose along the Nile near the spot where
he drowned. Many statues of Antinous have survived, which reveal his fleshy
and attractive appearance.[[30]]

End of life and problems of succession

When Hadrian returned to Rome in 136 from the east with its great responsibilities
of the Jewish War, his health had deteriorated markedly. He was now 60
years old, lonely and despondent. The empress Sabina had died, Antinous
was gone, few remained to whom he felt close. He therefore began to contemplate
a successor, in order to avoid a situation such as had occurred before
his own accession. Then, he was the obvious, indeed the only sensible choice;
now, there was no one who, by military distinction or close relationship
with him, would stand out. His choice, L. Ceionius Commodus, was surprising,
although he was cos. ord. when adopted. Nothing particularly recommended
him other than powerful political connections. His health was bad and he
had no military experience, his career having been entirely in the civilian
arena. Some scholars have suggested that he was Hadrian's bastard son,
but that need not be believed. Nonetheless, his only recommendation was
his good looks; his life was frivolous, his tastes luxurious. Hadrian's
choice seems to have been an aberration of judgment.

Commodus died on the first day of the year 138. Hadrian's next choice,
a much happier one, was T. Aurelius Fulvius Boionius
Arrius Antoninus known to history as Antoninus
Pius. The scion of a distinguished consular family, he had been
born near Rome in 86, although his patria was Nemausus in Gallia
Narbonensis. Consul in 120, at an early age, he soon thereafter served
as one of the four consulares who had jurisdiction of Italy.[[31]]
He reached the acme of a senatorial career with his governorship of Asia
about 134/5. He was one of the most distinguished men of the age.

Hadrian was at an imperial villa at Baiae, on the Bay of Naples, when
he died on July 10, 138. The senate now felt it could repay the emperor
for the wrongs done it from the beginning of his reign and undertook to
condemn his memory, in other words, damnatio memoriae. But Antoninus
fought against this condemnation of his adoptive father and gained deification
instead. It is generally thought that it was for this action that he received
the name of Pius.[[32]]

Hadrian's ashes were placed in his mausoleum and he received the customary
honors of having been recognized as a divus, which above all recognized
that he had ruled constitutionally. A great temple in the Campus Martius
was built to his memory in the early 140s, now called the Hadrianeum, one
of the largest in Rome. A substantial part survives. The tall stylobate
was decorated with alternating reliefs of provinces and victories. In all
likelihood, there was a relief of each of the 36 provinces which existed
at the time of Hadrian's death.[[33]]

Reputation

Hadrian died invisus omnibus, according to the author of the
Vita.[[34]]
But his deification placed him in the list of "good" emperors, a worthy
successor to the optimus princeps Trajan.
Hadrian played a significant role both in developing the foreign policies
of the empire and in its continuing centralization in administration. Few
would disagree that he was one of the most remarkable men Rome ever produced,
and that the empire was fortunate to have him as its head. When Aelius
Aristides delivered his oration To Rome in 143, he had Hadrian's
empire in mind when he said,

"But there is that which very decidedly deserves as much attention and
admiration now as all the rest together. I mean your magnificent citizenship
with its grand conception, because there is nothing like it in the records
of all mankind. Dividing into two groups all those in your empire - and
with this word I have indicated the entire civilized world - you have everywhere
appointed to your citizenship, or even to kinship with you, the better
part of the world's talent, courage, and leadership, while the rest yourecognized
as a league under your hegemony. Neither sea nor intervening continent
are bars to citizenship, nor are Asia and Europe divided in their treatment
here. In your empire all paths are open to all. No one worthy of rule or
trust remains an alien, but a civil community of the World has been established
as a Free Republic under one, the best, ruler and teacher of order; and
all come together as into a common civic center, in order to receive each
man his due.[[35]]

That being the case, it seems somewhat odd that he is best known to
most people, not from Gibbon's narrative nor from any specific scholarly
treatment, but from a work of fiction. This is the quite splendid Memoirs
of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar, which became a best-seller about
half a century ago. She presents a Hadrian as he might have been, and,
although she commands a wide range of source material, the reader must
always be alert to the fact that this Hadrian is not necessarily the historical
Hadrian.[[36]]

Scholarly work on the emperor, above all biographies, has been varied
in quality. Much the best, as the most recent, is by A.R. Birley, who presents
all that is known but underscores how much is conjecture, nay even guesswork.
We still do not really know the man. An enigma he was to many while alive,
and so he remains for us. Semper in omnibusvarius; omnium curiositatum
explorator; varius multiplex multiformis: these are descriptions of
him from antiquity.[[37]] They are still valid
more than 1900 years after the emperor's death.